Simon go back, and Bhagat Singh

The Indian Statutory Commission under John Simon, appointed in November 1927 to review the reforms with not one Indian member, was met by black flags and "Simon go back" from its landing at Bombay on 3 February 1928. At Lahore on 30 October police under superintendent James Scott charged the protesters with lathis, and Lala Lajpat Rai, beaten at the front of the crowd, died on 17 November. On 17 December Bhagat Singh and Rajguru of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association, meaning to kill Scott, shot assistant superintendent John Saunders instead, and Chandrashekhar Azad shot head constable Chanan Singh as he gave chase.

On 8 April 1929 Bhagat Singh and B. K. Dutt threw two bombs, made not to kill, onto empty benches of the Central Legislative Assembly in Delhi and waited to be arrested, shouting "Inquilab zindabad". In jail the prisoners hunger-struck for political status, and Jatin Das died on the 63rd day. A special tribunal set up by ordinance tried the Saunders case with no appeal to the High Court, and on 7 October 1930 sentenced Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev to death. Azad died in a gunfight with police in Alfred Park, Allahabad, on 27 February 1931.

The three were hanged in Lahore Central Jail on the evening of 23 March 1931, ahead of the announced morning of the 24th. Their bodies were taken out secretly and burned near Hussainiwala on the Sutlej, and accounts differ over how the remains were treated. Whether Gandhi pressed Irwin hard enough for a reprieve during the talks that produced their pact of 5 March is argued to this day. The jail was demolished, and the site of the gallows is now Shadman Chowk.